TOKYO, June 24, 2021—It’s all about government publicity that Japan is taking appropriate safety measures to restart nuclear power reactors: On June 23, 2021, Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced that it had commenced the decommissioning work of Fukushima Daini nuclear power station, which houses four boilining water reactors that suffered accidents one after another over the past four decades forcing the company to decide disposal in 2019.
The TEPCO announcement coincided with Kansai Electric Power Co.’s announcement that it restated No. 3 reactor at its Mihama nuclear power station located on the Sea of Japan coast. The two announcements, presumably by the prodding of the PM Suga cabinet and the trade ministry, are meant to send a message to the Japanesse public that the government is managing Japan’s 59 nuclear power reactors safely and securely, disposing of what it considers not safe and keeping others determined as safe to operate. (see Prospect 6/23/21)
Plus, the government timed the two announcements to coincide with its June 22 final decision to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympic games regardless of whether Covid-19 infections soar as warned by scientists and the government’s infectious disease commission. Effectively, the power reactor announcements are intended to tell the public about the government’s muscles.
In March 2011, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station’s reactors exploded and triggered a meltdown, forcing residents of npot only Fukushima but also of wider areas. TEPCO has been working to dispose of the reactors there but to this day it has been hampered by difficulty of pulling out red-hot fuel rods. Many Fukushima residents who had been living near the power stations can not return home even more than 10 years later because of high radiation levels.
Fukushima Daini reactors would be disposed of over the next 44 to 45 years, TEPCO said earlier. It plans to spend the first 10 years for decontamination of radiation and disposing of fuel rods kept in storage pools.
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